Dark photon dark matter produced by axion oscillations

Abstract

Despite growing interest and extensive effort to search for ultralight dark matter in the form of a hypothetical dark photon, how it fits into a consistent cosmology is unclear. Several dark photon dark matter production mechanisms proposed previously are known to have limitations, at least in certain mass regimes of experimental interest. In this paper, we explore a novel mechanism, where a coherently oscillating axionlike field can efficiently transfer its energy density to a dark photon field via a tachyonic instability. The residual axion relic is subsequently depleted via couplings to the visible sector, leaving only the dark photon as dark matter. We ensure that the cosmologies of both the axion and dark photon are consistent with existing constraints. We find that the mechanism works for a broad range of dark photon masses, including those of interest for ongoing experiments and proposed detection techniques.